Peer-to-peer works. This is why speakers remain one of the most important methods of engaging with your healthcare professionals (HCPs). It all starts with successful speaker’s bureau management — the cornerstone of any peer-to-peer effort. Managing your bureau with impact is crucial in conducting successful HCP programs. It requires strict attention to detail and understanding the nuances of navigating relationships within a diverse set of speakers. In other words, the difference is in the details!
Here are details that can make the difference between a good speaker’s bureau and a great one:
1. Ensure seamless integration across all facets of the bureau
It’s often tempting to treat each component of the speaker’s bureau management process as its own separate entity, whether it’s the initial identification phase, speaker training, right-sizing or validation. While these may be different individual steps, they’re all part of the same plan. Managing these steps requires an understanding of how they integrate with each other. The more seamless you can make each phase transition into the next, the stronger your bureau will be. The people from your team and agency who initially build relationships with your speakers should be the same individuals they interact with when coordinating schedules, conducting training, and traveling to conduct HCP programs.
2. Find partners who your speakers trust
Your speakers want to work with a team who understands their individual preferences and can anticipate their needs. Syncing schedules, arranging travel, lodging, and other accommodations can be a daunting task. Speakers appreciate partnering with those who can make these logistics as painless and hassle-free as possible. They should always have a reliable contact they trust to reach out to when they have questions or find themselves in an emergency situation, such as having a flight cancelled at the last minute. Handling the little things and allowing your speakers to focus on their presentations is something that will ultimately be the difference between a good meeting and an outstanding one.
3. Know when to vet and right-size
Nothing is more frustrating than having too many speakers trained and struggling to find opportunities to utilize them. Not only is this a source of stress for you but for your speakers who are putting forth the time and effort to become trained and remain compliant. Your bureau should be analyzed on a regular basis. Routinely evaluate which speakers should be retained, which speakers should be replaced, and which speakers should be removed entirely. This is called “right-sizing.” Most companies have a set number of engagements that each speaker must meet in order to be retained. Regularly vetting your bureau with an objective partner ensures that your speakers are currently practicing and treating patients, have an active professional license, and are delivering the most value to your peer-to-peer HCP network.
4. Be prepared to adjust on the fly
When managing a bureau, the one constant is change. Most products experience label changes. Speakers often have to drop out of a bureau due to personal reasons or their institution no longer allows them to speak on behalf of BioPharma companies. Unpredictable weather often wreaks havoc on in-person events. Be sure to develop contingencies for any event, whether that means quickly recertifying speakers on an updated deck, transitioning from an in-person event to a virtual one overnight, or substituting speakers when one is suddenly unavailable.
5. Find the right mix
Determining the right mix of training requires taking a look at where your product is in its life cycle, the complexity of the data being presented, the size of the bureau, budgets, and time constraints. Your speaker’s bureau will likely require a mix of different training formats that will evolve from year to year. Live, in-person training is not only helpful for building relationships and chemistry, but also allows for small group workshops that develop presentation skills. Virtual live, on the other hand, is ideal when unpredictable events such as weather or changing schedules prevent in-person training or budget constraints. And finally, on-demand training often makes for a great back-up option that allows for training speakers who are unable to attend any live training sessions or for when you have small updates to a deck and need to quickly get your speakers recertified.
Want to learn more?
Check out our white paper which examines the various forms of speaker training and breaks down the pros and cons of each.
